A Meeting of the Minds

That saying "Old friends are the best friends" is so true.

I was so blessed to get together this weekend with some of the neatest, brightest, funnest (oh yeah, I said that!) most creative people I know. They're my old friends, with nothing snarky intended about their ages. Actually, most of them are younger than I am.

Here they are:

Darrell, Alan, Karen and Leroy



I haven't seen these friends in seven years, since they all converged on our home. This time Karen hosted. The picture above was made near her home, at an elementary school playground.

I left from home around mid morning and headed toward a suburb of Knoxville, to Karen's home. She had organized the get together of several people that we used to work with at a now-defunct newspaper in the Upper Cumberland region.

Those years together were the best of times. And sometimes, the worst of times. But there were always laughs. Always.

I have known Leroy the longest. We worked together at another newspaper in Sparta, Tennessee, for a year in 1995 before he moved on to greener pastures. Or so he thought.

Within a few months, I tagged along after him. And that's where I met Karen, Alan and Darrell.

A brand new, highly technological newspaper was formed and called The Putnam Morning Light. We now joke and call it The Morning Blight.

(I've never worked at a newspaper that didn't have an alternate name. One to use when disgust over long hours and short pay kicked in. For instance, The Sparta Expositor can be changed when necessary to The Suppository. See? It's great fun!)

Karen and I were reporters, sometimes photographers and/or editors. Leroy, Darrell and Alan are all computer geniuses who can do magic in Photoshop and any other program that relates to art or layout.

The first newspaper went through a transition in ownership and we moved locations up the hill in Monterey and worked out of Crossville for awhile before that paper, The Cumberland Journal , also went belly up. (Just an FYI, The Journal's alternate nickname was The Urinal. That still makes me smile.)

It was a shame, too, when it ended.

Because I have never worked with more talented people than those I worked with there. Each person was really excellent at their area of expertise. Not simply good... excellent. I learned so much from each of them. And not just about newspapers.

A lot has changed in the last decade.

Darrell's daughter is a teenager now. I'm a stay-at-home mom. Karen went to work for her alma mater, got married and has two precious boys. Leroy finished college and teaches at a private school now. And Alan has bought a house and "downsized" his preference for fast, flashy cars and now drives a pick-up truck.

Not even one of us works in newspaper now. Although, both Darrell and Alan still work with computers and layout.

The conversation was ripe on Saturday. We laughed until we cried. We recalled stories upon stories. We picked at each other. We vented some, too. It was good.

I didn't get home until nearly midnight.

A big thanks to our spouses, who allowed us to do this visit solo and sans children. All the better to be able to hear each other and have a genuine catch-up session.

We're all already talking about the next shindig. We won't wait so long this next time.